We’re always on the lookout for the best advice on how to grow your staffing agency. We’ve found the best strategies often come from our industry friends and leaders who are truly exemplifying success and profitability.
We want to know — what have they done to improve their staffing agency?
Even in one of the most competitive employment markets we’ve seen in years, staffing leaders use some key strategies to expand their market access while delivering an industry-leading candidate experience.
A special thank you to Pankaj Jindal and Sense for hosting their recent informative webinar on how top staffing agencies outperform the competition and accelerate their revenue growth year after year. Pankaj is a staffing industry veteran and the co-founder of Sense, the first candidate engagement platform designed specifically for the staffing industry.
Stick to the basics. It can be easy to chase the newest, shiniest technology or trend to accelerate your staffing agency’s growth. But leading recruiting agencies all agree that the simplest, tried-and-tested strategies are getting the best results. Here are some of the things they all proposed:
Beyond highlighting remote work options and committing to recruiting underrepresented candidates to build a more diverse workforce, here are some creative strategies some recruiters are using to grow their agency:
That last point is becoming increasingly important. Previously, recruiters and employers used to see a candidate’s previous position that was only one year as a red flag. But the pace of change in several industries, especially within the tech sector, is becoming so rapid that many full-time employees are exiting their positions in a year and sometimes even less.
Another factor that is driving high turnover after one year is pay raises. Many candidates have found they can negotiate for a better wage increase at a new position rather than convincing their current employer to give them a good pay raise. Their high rate of turnover is your gain.
The “employer brand” is such a big buzzword these days for a reason. Building and strengthening your employer brand is one of the most important things a staffing agency can do to attract clients and valuable leads. Some of the best steps to take in building your employer brand is to deliver a white-glove candidate experience by:
There are so many new and evolving ways to stay in touch with your talent pool. The biggest key is automation. By automating the manual tasks like sending one-off messages, your recruiters spend much less time on tasks that are taking away their ability to be more people focused.
A good rule of thumb is for any task your recruiter must do more than five times, automate it!
Who on your team is cleaning your leads with data management? If you don’t have anyone, you should consider someone right away. There has never been more data at our fingertips about our candidates, what is important to them and where they’re at in their buyer journey.
The staffing agencies that can capture that data and use it wisely will be positioned to grow their agency like nobody else.
All these suggestions not only sound effective, but they’re proven to work. What’s more, when your staffing agency can go all-in with these tips from the most successful firms, not only can you grow their business in similar ways, but you can have a lot of fun and help job seekers improve their lives along the way.
Let us know how we can help. Whether finding the time or the expertise or developing the overall strategy to grow your staffing agency, Parqa will help you find a way to beat the competition. Contact our team today.
When Tony Sorensen began Parqa Marketing, he wanted to create a digital marketing agency that could meet the highly specialized needs of the staffing industry. Because Parqa began as an offshoot of Versique Search & Consulting, we started with niche expertise vital to serving our client’s unique needs. As a result, we have been able to help our clients grow their businesses and expand their market share in ways that nobody else could.
We recently sat down with Parqa’s CEO and Owner, Tony Sorensen, to discuss the beginning of Parqa, what we’ve been able to accomplish for our partners, and where we’re headed in a rapidly evolving industry.
At first, it was just dumb luck. I was single. I was working for a big company then, my first job right out of college.
I moved up fast with that organization. But I didn’t want to work for a big company. And I wanted to be responsible for where I was going, be in control of my job, and grow my career like I thought I could. But most of all, I wanted to help people.
I was able to take an opportunity in staffing and recruiting, which was a perfect fit even though I was nervous about the pay being 100% commission. But thankfully, I took the opportunity because, you know, it really worked out for me, and it gave me my start in the staffing and recruiting industry.
In January 2013, Chris Ohlendorf and I launched Versique with a simple vision. It was going to be two things:
We wanted to own the internet so that anytime anybody searched for “staffing and recruiting” in Minneapolis or the Twin Cities, they would find us. And if we were going to own the internet, we knew we’d have to invest heavily in digital marketing. That heavy investment in marketing would eventually pave the way for Parqa.
We’d already got a taste for what a solid investment in digital marketing could do for our staffing agency, Versique. Big things. Incredible things. So, we began Parqa because we wanted to really give back to our industry and start helping other staffing firms around the country to grow just like Versique did.
The beginning of Parqa was not without its challenges.
For starters, we were signing contracts with so many smaller companies that weren’t willing to invest in their brand. Also, we thought anybody could do what Versique did. But what I didn’t realize was internal marketing at Versique was investing heavily – a lot of time and energy – in building our brand through content marketing. And while that worked very well for Versique, we found many companies weren’t interested in making that investment.
The early years of Parqa were decent, but we were struggling to find our passion and ideal customer profile. When Jared began running the business, he was able to lock us into a path that we haven’t wavered from, which has allowed us to attract some very high-end talent and, in return, helped us bring on some of the largest staffing firms in the world as trusted partners.
Challenges help us to learn, and some of the biggest things I’ve learned are:
One of the most important things I’ve learned is that the place where Parqa is going, we’ve never been there before. The best way to get there is to hire the right people and give them the confidence to take you there.
Is it working? Over the past 12 months, Parqa has hired 33 people, and we’ve had the lowest turnover ever. So yes, so far, it’s working very well.
With COVID and the pandemic, we learned a thing or two about flexibility. Chris and I probably grew more in the last two years than probably the previous seven years combined.
It was hard for us to make the shift to working from home. It was hard for us to come around to the idea of people not being in the office five days a week.
But, I had to listen to what my team was saying and what my leaders were saying. I had to believe that just because my team isn’t in the office doesn’t mean that they’re not productive. So that was a big change.
But you know what? While working remote – and more recently, working a hybrid situation – we had two record years, not just in growth, but in how we’re changing to serve our clients and employees better.
We learned that if you take off the old-school hat and really build an organization around trust and accountability – which I think we have done over the last seven years – you build a culture of trust. We still love the people we work with, and we want everybody to be part of a close-knit company, and I was so afraid that we would lose all that during COVID.
We realized we really need to focus on forward-thinking staffing firms. Firms that understand how critical it is to invest in their brand, invest in and organize their technology, invest in the best tools that will really help them grow value in their organization, and ultimately, grow a legacy for what they’re trying to do.
And now we’re working with some of the biggest staffing firms in the world. That’s a big deal for us to see how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet to go.
But we’ve seen Parqa evolve and grow to become more of a technology and performance marketing company. And the Parqa name is out there. We are owning the internet.
What’s more, our Parqa team is learning so many things from all of our industry associations and partnerships. So, the tide has kind of turned. Where other firms had wanted what Versique had, now Parqa is learning so much at conferences and collaborating with industry leaders across the globe that we really feel like it will be one of the main driving forces in Versique’s growth into the future.
We’ve heard from several sources that 60% of business in the staffing industry will be some sort of contingent labor. This means there is no better time than now to really build your marketing strategy and invest in your brand as a staffing agency.
If you’re going to win, and we want you to win, you need help. And we can help you get there.
In honor of Women’s History Month, this week’s #LearnWithParqa is full of great resources for women in the staffing industry! Watch along as Kelli Schutrop discusses:
March is Women’s History Month. In recognition and celebration of the vital role of women everywhere, we wanted to pull five relevant and top takeaways from a recent Fireside Chat in which Parqa’s Vice President of Sales, Kelli Schutrop spoke with four leaders in the staffing industry:
Kelli’s candid conversation was a refreshingly revealing assessment of leadership in staffing and recruiting with some of the most inspiring women in the industry. Here are five crucial takeaways from their conversation:
Many leaders in the staffing industry have become scrappy and resourceful. That’s the nature of the work. One key discovery in becoming more resourceful was learning how to utilize an inverse support system. They’ve discovered new ways to build community and to contribute to the community that’s around them.
Sometimes, everything goes wrong, whether it’s childcare falling through, something at your kid’s school, a nanny calling out sick. This can be especially stressful for the many women who don’t live close to family – then what’s your backup?
This became especially critical during COVID, when many women came together to build an untraditional support network, such as coworkers and neighbors. And even though, in some cases, they couldn’t be more different from one another, they learned to lean on each other for everything – from parenting tips to professional strategies.
If we’re going to be models for others in the industry, we have to be genuine and vulnerable about the reality that we don’t have it all together all the time. Many of us struggle to maintain this thin veneer of perfection.
That isn’t genuine. To admit that can actually be very humanizing. Learn to share those vulnerabilities and stop glorifying the “grind.” Life isn’t about just being busy.
Women especially have so many spinning plates, and sometimes, it’s okay to let a plate drop. And that’s okay. You’re going to disappoint somebody, you just have to disappoint the right people. Be choosy and, if it can be avoided, disappoint someone who isn’t your family.
Understand the importance of childcare and the ramifications when you don’t have access to childcare – especially for working parents.
Many of us are fortunate enough to have a nanny on whom we can depend in times when we really need the extra help. It’s a critical component to giving us the space we need to prioritize what’s important and what we can let go of.
One thing we’re finally beginning to realize is how important it is to make yourself a priority. Don’t feel guilty about adjusting your household expectations to make yourself a priority. That is one thing we’ve truly learned, to take time for ourselves. When we allow ourselves “me time,” we can not only be better, happier moms, but better at our job as well.
Jenny brought up a great point with Pride Global’s Dojo program. The idea is modeled after a dojo in karate. If you’re new to karate, or any sort of martial arts, you begin as a white belt. You’re not expected to know moves. You’re not expected to know the basics. You’re just expected to be open-minded and to learn.
This translates to so many people’s professional careers as well. Whether you’re just starting a job as a new administrative assistant or as a senior-level market lead, everyone comes in on the same playing field. Over time, we all have the same opportunity to elevate ourselves and advance.
By being open and always willing to learn something new, we’re taking the first step toward doing great work and bettering ourselves and our professional careers.
Historically, many women still find it difficult to be frank about their accomplishments and their potential. Even in 2022, many women are still not encouraged to promote themselves. This needs to change.
Kelli asked each of our contributors to discuss something they’ve accomplished that they’re proud of and has helped others in the staffing industry and/or their organization.
Parqa’s Vice President of Sales, Kelli Schutrop, breaks down three critical platforms for recruiters in this latest episode of #LearnWithParqa. Learn how these three technologies can seamlessly streamline your recruiting processes and create additional opportunities to generate revenue and engage with your leads!
In today’s #LearnWithParqa, we’re talking about Parqa’s vision, the state of the staffing industry today and where it’s headed.
